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Thursday, December 28, 2017

New Tennessee Supreme Court Opinion: Court Holds Child Support Arrearage Will Not Disqualify Surviving Spouse from Pursuing a Claim for His or Her Deceased Spouse's Wrongful Death or Sharing in the Proceeds from Such a Claim

The Tennessee Supreme Court just issued its opinion in Spires v. Simpson, No. E2015-00697-SC-R11-CV (Tenn. Dec. 27, 2017). The syllabus from the slip opinion states as follows:

We granted permission to appeal in this case to clarify when two Tennessee statutes
would apply to preclude a parent who owes child support arrearages from recovering
proceeds from a wrongful death lawsuit. In this case, the plaintiff and the decedent were
married and had one child; the plaintiff abandoned the decedent and their son soon after
the child was born. The plaintiff and the decedent never divorced. The decedent spouse
died unexpectedly, and soon afterward the plaintiff surviving spouse filed this wrongful
death action. At the time, the plaintiff surviving spouse owed child support arrearages for
four other children unrelated to the decedent. The trial court dismissed the plaintiff
surviving spouse from the wrongful death lawsuit based on a provision in Tennessee’s
wrongful death statutes, Tennessee Code Annotated section 20-5-107(b) (2009 & Supp.
2017), and a similar provision in Tennessee’s intestate succession statutes, Tennessee
Code Annotated section 31-2-105(b) (2015 & Supp. 2017). It held that these two statutes
disqualified the plaintiff from filing the wrongful death action or recovering the proceeds
from it because he never provided financial support for his child with the decedent spouse
and because he had child support arrearages for his four children unrelated to the
decedent spouse. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. It held that
the two statutes did not bar the plaintiff from commencing the lawsuit for the wrongful
death of his spouse, but it also held that they precluded him from recovering proceeds
from the wrongful death lawsuit until his outstanding child support arrearages were
satisfied. Consequently, the Court of Appeals ordered that the plaintiff’s recovery from
the wrongful death action be paid toward satisfaction of his child support arrearages for
his four children who were unrelated to the decedent spouse. On appeal, we hold that the
prohibitions in Tennessee Code Annotated sections 20-5-107(b) and 31-2-105(b) apply
only when (1) the “parent” who seeks to recover in the wrongful death lawsuit is a parent
of the decedent child, and (2) that parent’s child support arrearage is owed for the support of that decedent child. Therefore, neither statute is applicable under the facts of this case.
Accordingly, the decisions of the lower courts are reversed and vacated insofar as they
applied those two statutes to this case. We affirm the Court of Appeals’ holding that
newly enacted wrongful death statutes regarding a surviving spouse’s waiver based on
abandonment of a decedent spouse may not be applied retroactively.

NOTE: This is a very good opinion that delves into Tennessee's wrongful-death statutes and statutory construction. This is a very good read for the Tennessee practitioner if she or he handles wrongful death cases.